Turn to Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10. I'm glad
that I was able to come this way, that our paths have crossed. I enjoyed the fellowship last
night, the meal we had, I enjoyed it. I pray God bless you. make His face to shine upon you,
keep you and give you peace. I want to talk to you this morning
for a little bit about faith. In Hebrews chapter 10, in verse
38 and 39, now the just shall live by faith, But if any man
draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him. But we are
not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe
to the saving of the soul." The people of God in all ages have lived by faith. That's how
they've lived. They did not live by the law
in the Old Testament and were saved and we live by faith in
the New Testament and that's how we're saved. That's not so.
Everyone whom God has ever saved and ever will save will be by
faith. He'll bring them to Christ. He'll
create faith in their heart and they will believe God. They will
believe God. When Abel offered unto God, and
it's interesting, when the Apostle here begins to speak of faith,
he reaches back all the way to Genesis. He reaches back to Genesis,
even before the law was given. When Abel offered unto God a
more excellent sacrifice than Cain, he offered it to God by
faith. He offered up believing God.
He offered up believing the Gospel. He believed the Gospel. The Gospel
has been preached since the beginning. Our Lord said, Abraham saw my
day and was glad. When Abraham was called to go
out to a place he knew not. He wasn't given a map. And God
did not say, this is exactly what I'm going to do with you.
You're going to go here, and I'm going to bless you, and I'm
going to... The Scripture says, he went out not knowing where
he was going. Can you imagine at 75 years of
age, God called him, God saved him, he was living in idolatry,
there in the land of the Chaldeans, and God made himself known to
him, And God called him and said, pack your bags up and leave and
I'll show you the place later. I'll show you the place later.
And he did. He did. He believed God. And he packed his bags and he
said, Sarah, we're leaving. Leaving. We're leaving. I have
found out who God is. God has made himself known to
me. God has said to me, revealed to me that we are to leave this
place. Can you imagine what impact that had on Sarah also at that
age? But they left, and they went
out, they said, by faith, they believed God. And when God spoke to Abraham
of the promised seed and that all nations through His seed,
which was Christ, would be blessed. Abraham believed God. He did
not say, show me a sign. That's what the Jews said. They
said, show us a sign and we'll believe you. No you won't. You
could see a thousand signs and you wouldn't believe. Because
faith, as I'll show you later, is a gift of God. But he believed
God and it was accounted to him, it was imputed to him for righteousness. Noah moved with fear, built an
ark, as God told him to, having never seen rain. Having never
seen rain, having never known what a flood is. But it says
he moved with fear, that is reverent fear. He did what God said because
he believed what God said. God said, no, build an ark, I'm
going to flood this place, I'm going to wipe it all out. And
Noah believed God. And the evidence, the evidence
that Noah believed God, he built the ark. He built the ark. James said faith without works
is dead. Noah believed God, he moved with
fear, Abraham believed God, Abel believed God, and you have a
whole list of them here in Hebrews chapter 11. It's called the Hall
of Fame of Faith. And just one after the other, they believed
God. Moses, he said, endured, over
here in verse 27, chapter 11, "...by faith Moses forsook Egypt,
not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured, as seeing
Him who is invisible." How do you see someone's invisible?
Now, how does that happen? I'll tell you how. Faith. Faith,
what my eyesight is physically, I see you. That's what faith
is spiritually. Faith enables you to see God.
It says in verse 1 here, in chapter 11, faith is the substance, it's
the ground, it's the confidence, it's the title deed to the things
hoped for. It's the evidence of things not
seen, it's the proof. When God gives faith, when He
gives real genuine faith, you see and comprehend what the natural
senses can't. God is real to you. For the first
time, God's not someone that you've been taught and told about.
He's real to you. Christ is just as real to me
as you are sitting where you are. There's a man seated in
glory at God's right hand. That's real to me. And that's
real to you who believe. You believe that's real. Christ
is real to you. And the reason He's real to you
is because that faith is of God. And it makes it known to you.
The God-given faith makes those things real. They
don't make them real. They are real. But it makes them
real to you. that you can't see and touch. It's that world that
we can't see with these eyes. But you believe. You believe. And you believe because that
faith is of God. Now, that faith is the faith
you live by every day. The just shall live by faith.
You know, four times this is said in the Word of God. The
just shall live by faith. And the interesting thing is,
the first time it is said is in Habakkuk. It's in the Old
Testament. First time it's mentioned. It's
not a New Testament doctrine, it's an Old Testament doctrine.
It says in Habakkuk chapter 2, I believe it's verse 4, the just
shall live by faith. And Paul repeats it in Romans
and Galatians, and here in Hebrews it's repeated. Must be important. Must be important. Martin Luther
was brought to faith by this Scripture. He was crawling up
the steps. When God brought this Scripture
to his mind, to his heart, he jumped up and went away from
that place and never went back, and thus the Reformation began.
And this is the Scripture of God's use, the just. Martin Luther,
the just shall live by faith. The just do not live by their
ceremonies. They do not live by their works.
We can't do anything because of sin. We cannot do anything
that God can accept. Our standard of good is here. God's standard of good is infinite. You see, our standard of good
is if it works. If it works, it's good. God's
standard of good is perfection Himself. God Himself is the standard. And He said, it must be perfect
to be accepted. It must be perfect to be accepted.
That's why God Almighty Himself not only provide us a perfect
sacrifice in Christ, the Lamb of God, but God Himself became
the Lamb. He Himself became the Lamb. That's
why the sacrifice of Christ is perfect. He's God. He's God. Now, He says here, the just. Who shall live by faith? The
just. the just. No one else will or
no one else can live by faith. You can't live by what you don't
have. Can you? You can't live by what you don't
have, no more than you can fall out of a tree you haven't climbed.
The just shall live by faith. You have to have it. The justified. They are the ones who live. They
are alive unto God and they live before God by faith. By faith. Not by sight. Not by
feelings. My faith. Well, I feel saved
today. And then tomorrow, you do something,
you fall, you stumble. I don't feel safe today. I tell you what, faith lays hold
of Christ. Whether I have a good day or
bad day, whether I'm standing or I'm falling, my salvation
is in Jesus Christ. I am confident of that. I'm confident
of it. Now, what does it mean to be
justified? He said, "...the just shall live by faith." They are
the ones who are justified. Well, pardon is not justified.
Being pardoned is not justified. Being forgiven is not justified.
Justified is to be cleared of all offenses against God. Being justified is to not have
one mark or blemish on the books before God. Being justified is
to be not guilty. I know that in Christ, I know
in myself what I am now, I know that. In Christ, I'm not guilty. In Christ, I have no sin or gone.
Did you hear what Jesus said to me? They're all taken away. They're gone. They're gone. Through the substitutionary person
and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, all for whom he died are justified. Not guilty. Nothing on the books.
Henry told us a true story one time. He said when he was a young
man, I believe he was a young man in college, and he had some
people in a car with him, he ran a stop sign. And hit him. A broadside. Just BAM! Hit him. And he had to go to court. And
he said he got his dad to go with him. So he said he went
to court. They sat there and they called
those other people there and they called them up and deal
with that case and then call another one, another one. And
Henry said, me and my dad just sitting there. And the judge
said, what are you here for? And he told him. And he looked
on the books and he says, there's nothing here. There's
nothing here. And nobody showed up. Not one
person showed up from that wreck. The police didn't show up. The
people that was in that car didn't show up. There was nothing on
the books about it. The judge says, you're clear.
You're free to go. No charge. He knew he did it. He knew what he did. But there
was no charge. And where there's no charge,
there is no condemnation. There is no condemnation to them
who are in Christ Jesus. That's what it says in Romans
8.1. He took my condemnation. It's gone. It's gone. Oh, that's what it is to be justified,
cleared of all charges. And what shall they do? What
shall the just do? Well, it says here they shall
live. They shall live. First of all,
they are alive. They are spiritually alive. That
which is born of the Spirit is what? Spirit. You know, that's
more than just saying that which is born of the Spirit is spiritual.
It says that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. That new man that is born of
God, that is created in righteousness and true holiness, is born of
the same nature of the Spirit. That which is born of the Spirit
is Spirit. I said to you last night, it's
not a renovation, it's a new birth. That's why Nicodemus,
the ruler of Israel, he couldn't comprehend what was being said.
How can a man, when he's old, enter the second time until his
mother, woman, be born? He said, I can't see that. I
don't understand what you're saying. You know the Lord said,
except you be born again, you can't see the Kingdom of God.
You can't enter into it. You can't. The only way to enter
into the Kingdom of God is to be born into it. None of us will migrate into
it. We're born into it. Born into it. But they shall live, and this
is how they live, they live before God, they live on this earth. They spend their life on this
earth, living, believing God. By faith. Believing God, listen,
now listen, they believe God for all things. We not only believe
God for salvation, we not only believe Him for forgiveness and
pardon and justification and all this in Christ, we believe
God for our daily bread. We believe God to take care of
us for time and eternity. That's what saving faith does.
It enables you to believe God when you can't see anything,
when you can't feel anything. You believe God. Spiritual life and faith go together. They go together. You can't have
one without the other. The Armenians, they have faith
preceding life. They have faith preceding life. Or they have faith as the cause
of spiritual life. The truth is this. Do you know
why we live? I'm talking about spiritually.
I'm talking about a man, a woman, whom God has saved. You know
why you live? Christ said, because I live, you shall live also. Because I live, you shall live
also. Faith is the evidence of life. It is not the cause of life.
It's the evidence of it. Just like breathing. How do you
know when a child is born, How do you know that child is alive?
It breathes. It starts to breathe. How do
you know someone has been born of God? They believe God. They
believe God. That's how you know they believe
God. Christ is our life, not faith. We don't live upon our faith.
We don't have faith in faith. We live upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
We never live upon faith. We don't live because of faith.
We live upon Christ. It says in Colossians 3, 4, "...when
Christ, who is our life, shall appear." Who's your life? The Lord Jesus Christ. He not
only gives us life, spiritual life, life from the dead, but
Jesus Christ is our life. He is that life. He said, I am
the life. I am the life. Now the faith that just lived
by is the gift of God. It's the gift of God. The human
heart will never come up with this. You know, when I preach
the gospel and I tell people to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, my confidence It's not that the group of people I'm
preaching to have got enough sense to believe. My confidence is this, is that
the Lord has a people. He has chosen a multitude of
people the scripture says no man can number. He's going to
call them, we saw last night, from the east and the west and
north and the south. He's going to tell them to give
up. Give up my people. and they're going to come, and
they're going to hear His voice. I don't know who they are, He does. He
knows every one of them by name. Every one of them. Salvation
is not a rescue attempt, it's an absolute. The Lord Jesus Christ
is not making a rescue attempt to save some people from hell.
The issue of salvation, listen, this issue of salvation is not
heaven and hell. You know, I grew up, you know,
you don't want to go to hell, do you? Well, anybody who's got
enough sense to come in and out of the rain doesn't want to go to hell. That's not the issue. The issue
is this. Being made one with God. How
can God be a just God and have anything to do with me? How can
I, a sinful creature, be made one and have fellowship with
Almighty God. The issue is not hell, it's God
and my sin. How can we get together? How
can mercy and truth meet together? How can righteousness and peace
kiss each other? That's the issue. I'm not trying
to scare people with this fact of a place. Salvation has nothing
to do with a place, it has everything to do with a person. The Lord
Jesus Christ These, and I don't know if they
do it here, but back home, you know, they've had this movie
they've called The Burning Hell, trying to scare children, scare
children into making a profession. You've got to hang them. You've
got to hang those guys to dupe children, to take children and
try to get a profession out of them, and all they do is make
them twofold a child of hell. The Lord said you encompass sea
and land to make a proselyte. And when you do, you've made
them twofold the children of hell. Tell them about the Lord Jesus
Christ and leave it alone. Leave it alone. The work of salvation
is His, not mine. I'm just a messenger. That's
all I am. I'm here to tell you the message
and I'm going to get on a plane and I'm going to go home. Now
whatever He does with it, He does with it. I'm not going to
try to squeeze somebody down an aisle and try to get a profession
out of them. I can go home and say, we had
50 saved. You can't have anybody saved. As I was talking this morning,
usually if I'm being a pastor, people say, how big is your congregation?
I don't know. God knows. God knows how big
that congregation is or is. I don't. I don't know. But faith, I do know this, it's
the gift of God. The human heart will never, never
believe until God Almighty does a mighty work. They're like those
demonics that said, leave us alone. What do we have to do
with you? That's the human race. What do we have to do with you?
And by His grace, He plucks you out like a brand out of the fire.
Gives you a heart to know Him, a right spirit, The love of God is shed abroad
in your heart, and I promise you, if the love of God is shed
abroad in a person's heart, it's going to leak out on them. Can't keep from it. Grace is
in you. It's coming out. It's coming out. The Word of God tells us a natural
mind is enmity against God. You know what the difference
between false faith and real faith? True faith, true faith
has its roots And it's fruit, found in Jesus Christ. It has
its roots in Christ. He's the author and finisher
of our faith. False faith is nothing but a stick in the ground.
And you can't grow fruit on a stick. You'll stick a stick in the ground
and see if it grows. Any fruit. Christ said, I'm the
vine, you're the branches, and because of this, there'll be
fruit. There'll be fruit. But true faith, true saving faith,
is rooted in Christ. It's rooted in Him. God-given
faith completely relies on Jesus Christ for wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, and redemption. It relies on nothing, none of
this flesh, nothing of this flesh. It relies on Jesus Christ. It's
the foundation of every grace. It's the foundation of every
grace. Without faith, it says over in verse 6, look over in
verse 6, but without faith, it's impossible to please God, please
Him, God, without faith. But I'll tell you something else
about it. It's also impossible to have real joy, to have real
joy in the Lord, whether you're having a good day or a bad day.
It's impossible to have real joy in the Lord, it's impossible
to have real hope, Oh, I don't believe that. It's
like a story I heard Henry tell one time. He said a guy ran out
of gas. He took his gas can and was walking to a farmhouse he
saw in the distance. And the closer he got, as he
walked toward that house, he said, they're not going to give
me any gas. The closer he got, he said, I'm sure they just won't
give me any gas. He got up on the porch, knocked
on the door. A guy came to the door, and he said, and the guy
said, just keep your old gas. He convinced himself that he
wasn't going to get it. It says there in Hebrews that
he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. See, faith
believes that God will do what he said he would do. It doesn't get all the way there
and just say, forget it. No, it's the foundation of every
grace. And without it, you can't have
real joy, real hope, real love, real peace, real contentment,
real assurance. You can't have salvation without it. And the measure of every grace
in us is, as our Lord said, according to your faith, so be it. According to your faith, so be
it. Now what are the blessings? What are the blessings that come
to us through faith. Well, first of all, in Romans
5.1 it says, therefore being justified by faith we have peace
with God. What a blessing. Peace with God. The war is over. The war is over. I have peace with God. And then it says in verse 2 of
that same chapter, we have access into this grace wherein we stand.
It says, by whom also. That is, by Jesus Christ also.
We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. We have justification by faith. Listen to Galatians 3. but that
no man is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident."
The law doesn't justify criminals. It doesn't. It doesn't justify
criminals. It condemns criminals. He says,
"...in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith."
And the law is not a faith. The law says do or live, do or
die. If you do it, you live. If you
don't, you die. That's the law. The man that doeth them shall
live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from
the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written,
Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree, that the blessing
of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith,
through this God-given faith. Paul, in writing in Acts 13,
38 and 39, he says, Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren,
that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins,
and by him all that believe are justified from all things." From
which you couldn't be justified by the Law of Moses. If you murdered
somebody, the Law of Moses did not justify you. You did. You would be put to death. If
you committed adultery, you would be put to death. You couldn't
be justified. You couldn't be cleared. You
murdered somebody, you couldn't even be forgiven. But he says here that through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, through the blood and righteousness
of Christ, we are justified from all things. I don't care what
it is. I don't care what you've done.
It doesn't matter. through the blood and righteousness
of Jesus Christ, you are completely cleared and charged and it's
gone. It's not even on the books. Now, that's good news to a sinner.
That's good news to somebody that knows what guilty means.
If you can't say guilty, you don't... It's not good news for
you. This is for those that are guilty.
And then another blessing is righteousness in Romans 10, 9,
and 10. That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved
with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth
confessions made unto salvation. Righteousness. You know, God
demands righteousness. He said, except your righteousness
exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will
know I was in the kingdom of heaven. And God demands righteousness.
He says the righteous Lord loves righteousness. And we have that
in Jesus Christ. We have that perfect righteousness
that God demands in Jesus Christ. I have it. You have it if you
believe. If we believe, we have it. And
then we have eternal life. Eternal life. John 5.24, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life." That's the reason you
believe. You believe because you have.
He says, have everlasting life. That's why you believe. If you
didn't have life, you wouldn't believe God at all. Dead people don't believe anything. Dead. Those who are dead in trespasses
and sins, those who are dead, spiritually dead, don't believe
God. They want nothing to do with God. They're like Psalm 50, he said,
you thought I was altogether like yourselves. You thought
I was like you. That's a pitiful view, isn't
it? That's a high view of myself and a low view of God. And the apostle closes here and
he says, now, if any man draw back, my soul will have no pleasure
in him. If any man draws back out of fear, out of persecution,
he leaves the gospel, he goes to another gospel like they did
in Galatians. If they kept going, he said, I don't have no pleasure.
You know why? Because how can two walk together except they
agree? You can't. Light and darkness cannot, they
don't go together. gas and fire, you're going to
have an explosion. It's painful to watch someone
confess Christ and leave, but some do. Some do, because that's
what he's dealing with here in Hebrews. Some are wanting to
go back under that old mosaic economy because they've been
persecuted so much. They're losing their homes, their
lands, losing all that stuff. I mean, they were persecuted.
And some of them were like, this is not worth it. I bet they wish they could change
their mind now. Because these things are temporal.
Everything you and I see is temporal. Then I'll give you a word of
encouragement. The apostle says, but we are not of them who draw
back to perdition. but then to believe for the saving
of the soul. True faith will not leave and go back. It will
persevere. The faith that's of God will
persevere to the end. Paul said, I know whom I have
believed and I'm persuaded. He's able to keep that which
I've committed unto him against that day. True faith, true faith
believes God, loves Christ, follows Christ, loves the people, of
Christ, and it perseveres. It follows
on to know the Lord. You will. If God's giving you
faith, you'll persevere on. We are kept by the power of God
through faith. He keeps us believing. I don't
keep myself believing. You don't keep yourself believing,
He does. It's the Spirit of God in you, the work of God in you,
that keeps you trusting Him, following Him, and looking after
Him. I enjoyed my time here. I've enjoyed it. I pray the Lord
bless you and sends you a man after his own heart. The Lord
bless you.